Increasing Traffic to Your Website Through Search Engine Optimization Techniques

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INCREASING TRAFFIC WHAT’S INSIDE Key Concepts...... 1 TO YOUR WEBSITE How Search Engines Work...... 2 THROUGH SEARCH ENGINE Getting Started...... 2 Planning...... 2 OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES 1. Questions to Ask Yourself...... 2 Small businesses that want to learn how to attract more 2. Setting SEO Objectives and Goals...... 2 customers to their website through marketing strategies such 3. Do-It-Yourself Options...... 3 as search engine optimization will find this booklet useful. You 4. Choosing an SEO Specialist may want to read this booklet in conjunction with other booklets to Work With...... 3 in this series such as Successful Online Display Advertising and 5. Understanding Best Practices, Pitfalls and Barriers...... 4 Social Media for Small Business. Implementing SEO...... 6 1. Keywords...... 6 Key Concepts 2. Finding the Right Keywords...... 7 3. Search Engine Search engine optimization (SEO) involves designing, writing, and coding a Optimization Techniques...... 7 website in a way that helps to improve the volume and quality of traffic to 4. Link Popularity – A Key your website from people using search engines. These “free,” “organic,” or Factor for Increasing a “natural” rankings on the various search engines can be influenced, but not Website’s Page Ranking...... 8 controlled, by effective SEO techniques. Websites that have higher rankings 5. Keyword Conversion...... 9 (i.e. presented higher in the search results) are identified to a larger number of people who will then visit those sites. Test, Measure, Test Again...... 9 1. Webmaster Tools...... 9 The majority of web traffic is driven by major search engines, including 2. Tracking Your Progress/ Google, Bing, YouTube, AOL, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, Ask Jeeves and other Website Analytics...... 10 country-specific ones (e.g. Baidu in China). Future of Search Engine Optimization...... 10

Related Topics Covered in Other Booklets...... 10

Glossary of Terms...... 11

Disclaimer: This booklet is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, technical, business or other advice and should not be relied on as such. Please consult a lawyer or other professional advisor if you have any questions related to the topics discussed in the booklet. The Ontario Government does not endorse any commercial product, process or service referenced in this booklet, or its producer or provider. The Ontario Government also does not make any express or implied warranties, or assumes any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or usefulness of any information contained in this booklet, including web-links to other servers. All URLs mentioned in this document will link to an external website. 2

How Search Engines Work 3. Who are my competitors? Search engines have four functions—crawling, building 4. Who are my allies and associates to help influence an index, calculating relevancy and rankings, and serving my optimization results? results. They scour your website and, for each page, index all of the text they can pick up, as well as a great deal 5. What is the budget and time I can allocate to of other data about that page’s relation to other pages, optimizing my website initially and going forward? and in some cases all or a portion of the media available on the page as well. Search engines index all of this 2. Setting SEO Objectives and Goals information so that they can run search queries efficiently. The ultimate goal of search engine optimization is to Search engines create these databases by performing boost your revenue by driving traffic to your website. periodic crawls of the Internet. They must weigh the value However, there are other important objectives: of each page and the value of the words that appear on it. • To establish you as an expert in your field. Visibility Search engines employ secret algorithms (mathematical in search engines creates an implied endorsement formulas) to determine the value they place on such effect where searchers associate quality, relevance elements as inbound and outbound links, density of and trustworthiness with sites that rank highly for keywords and placement of words within the site their queries. structure, all of which may affect your SEO ranking. Search engines have difficulty indexing multimedia, but • To enhance product awareness. It is better to have an there are workarounds which will be discussed later in image or video displayed as opposed to just text since the booklet. it will attract more attention.

The newest trend in search engines, and likely the future • To increase sales leads. The goal is to drive the of search in general, is to move away from keyword-based right traffic to your site by encouraging people to searches to concept-based personalized searches. When provide qualified contact information for future a person clicks on certain search results, search engines relationship building. like Google, Bing and others record this information to collect trends of interest and then will personalize the • To reduce cost per order. Free search engine traffic search results based on specific interests. This is still a will help you reduce the cost of advertising compared developing field, but appears to have good potential in to other media channels. making searches more relevant. • To encourage repeat visitors. Optimized pages help The following pages outline SEO techniques that will help customers find additional products or services more you to draw more visitors to your website. easily and quickly after they have purchased from you, thus improving customer support and service.

• To qualify visitors. Search can help you understand the Getting Started stage your buyer is at—just beginning or further along. Getting a clear picture of searcher and visitor intent Planning helps you to adjust your site to accommodate their needs. 1. Questions to Ask Yourself When planning your search engine optimization strategy, 1. Who am I trying to attract to my website? Who is my bear in mind that, although many site owners seek a #1 target audience? ranking, search engines want the #1 result to be the one that offers the most value to users. Unless your website 2. Do I have the resources and knowledge-base in-house offers this, it may be unrealistic for you to expect to get to to optimize my site or should I use the services of an that position. Be realistic when setting your objectives. SEO specialist? 3

3. Do-It-Yourself Options • Allocate appropriate time for continuous efforts. Many small business owners hire the services of an SEO • Have the appropriate metrics in place for expert to optimize their websites. If you would prefer to do review and analysis so you can continue to it yourself, here are some questions to ask yourself first: improve your positioning.

1. Do I really have the time it takes to optimize my 4. Choosing an SEO Specialist website? Entrepreneurs wear many hats, and there may be too many other business priorities that take to Work With precedence over a website project. Because SEO is such a specialized and ever-changing world, you should consider working with an expert. 2. Will doing my own SEO save money? Time spent The best time to hire an SEO specialist is either at the doing one job is time away from doing another. Could creation of a new website or the major redesign of an focusing on web development and SEO instead of existing one. This will ensure that you implement the business planning, building customer relationships necessary steps to make your site optimized right from and handling staff issues end up costing more money the start. in the long run? Here is a list of key questions to ask to help in choosing 3. How strong are my web development skills? Be an SEO specialist: honest with yourself. SEO requires specific technical and marketing expertise. And marketing is an ongoing process. Questions to Ask a Potential SEO Specialist 1. What are your most important SEO techniques? If you are satisfied with the answers and your preference is still the do-it-yourself approach, 2. Can you show me examples of your previous work here are some guidelines: and share some success stories?

• Define your target audience and brainstorm keyword 3. Do you offer any online marketing services or advice phrases that are applicable to them. to complement your SEO business?

• Identify your competitors and conduct a competitive 4. Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines? analysis using tools like compete.com or wordtracker.com, or review their websites. 5. What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what • Conduct formal or informal surveys of your timeframe? How do you measure your success? customers and prospects or set up Google 6. What is your experience in my industry? www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ or Bing Webmaster www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/ 7. What is your experience in my country/city? to see what keywords people are searching for in your field. 8. How long have you been in business? • Write appropriate content, utilizing keyword best 9. How can I expect to communicate with you? Will practices (see below). you share with me all the changes you make to my • Understand what is entailed to optimize a website. site, and provide detailed information about your Know who to ask to implement your ideas, or have recommendations and the rationale behind them? the appropriate resources (software) or knowledge 10. How do you charge for your services? Is this a base to do it yourself. one-time fee or an ongoing contract? What are the deliverables if it is ongoing? 4

Types of Services Most SEO Specialists Provide • Keyword and competitive research • Review of your site content and/or structure • SEO training • Advice on technical aspects of SEO and their impact on your website • Content development and/or editing CAUTION: Be wary of emails that may appear legitimate but are often spammers offering SEO • Management of online business services and claiming they can “Guarantee #1 Ranking”. development campaigns

5. Understanding Best Practices, Pitfalls and Barriers

SEO BEST PRACTICES

Category Actions Keyword Search • Find the words and phrases your customers use rather than industry jargon. • Look for synonyms. • Reflect the answers to viewer questions in your keywords and in the content of your pages. • Move away from thinking of keywords as data. Imagine instead the person who will be typing in that keyword and what they are searching for. Quality Content • Content is still “king” and search engines are looking for keyword phrases surrounded by semantic phrasing that supports the overall theme of that section. Try to incorporate synonyms. SEO Local (Optimizing your site • Optimize your website to acquire foot traffic or local area interest. Add to attract local business) service location addresses and/or city listings and include good local links to your pages. • Choose the proper categories in Google Places. • Make sure Google can recognize that your website and your Google Places page are associated and linked. • Ask users for citations and reviews which will link back to you. Social SEO (Optimizing your • Use social cues such as Twitter shares, Facebook likes and social bookmarking site for social networks and which heavily influence search rankings. For more optimization suggestions such social media) as tagging and keyword titles, see the Social Media for Small Business booklet. Guest SEO • Be a guest blogger on other related blogs. • Consider targeting blogs that aren’t direct matches to your industry to get a leg up on your competition. For more about blogging, see the Blogs for Small Business booklet.

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Category Actions Link Building • Use reciprocal link exchange moderately. Instead, let link building happen naturally through people retweeting and passing on your good content and articles. • Ensure quality of links rather than quantity. The higher the quality of links, the more trust and authority will be established. • Use targeted keywords in anchor text. • When you do a link exchange, don’t always link back to your home page. Instead, provide a link to the most relevant section of your site that relates to the anchor link – e.g. “what you need to know about gluten-free products” should link to the page about gluten-free products. • Ensure any out of date or old web pages are redirected to the relevant new pages through a 301 redirect. Technical Considerations • Keyword density (how often keyword phrases are used in comparison to total number of words on that page) of over 10% is considered suspicious and does not look like naturally written text. Aim for 3–7% of total words per page to be the keywords you are trying to optimize for. • Have a short title tag (6 or 7 words at most), with the most important keywords near the beginning and used only once. • Avoid cumbersome URLs. Instead, create user-friendly URLs for easy accessibility by viewers and search engines – e.g. change www.mysite.com/recipes.php?object=1 &type=2&kind=3&node=5&arg=6 to www.mysite.com/recipes/apples. • Submit an XML site map to the search engines after making any major structural changes to your site.

SEO PITFALLS/BARRIERS

Category Actions Marketing • When choosing keyword phrases, avoid using the word “free” unless you’re offering something unconditionally. • Be careful adjusting page titles without altering page content. Google may view it unfavourably. • Avoid overly aggressive or manipulative SEO techniques, such as loading too many keywords in the website’s content, which might get your site excluded from a search engine. • Exclude linking affiliates that are not relevant as this could negatively affect your positioning.

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Category Actions Technical • In structural design, do not use frame set up (check with your developer). • Avoid free hosting since it is difficult for search engines to wade through all the data when there are many sites sharing free hosting. • Watch for and remove any broken links (URL links that no longer work and are not accessible). • Do not use FLASH, videos or images without alternative tags (alt tags), transcripts or synopsis content. • Do not try to optimize by using an excessive number of keywords, especially unrelated ones, as this will affect the performance of all your keywords. • Avoid artificially inflated keyword density (over 10%) or you will risk getting banned from search engines. • Keep the number of links on a page to a reasonable number since Google does not like pages that consist mainly of links. • Avoid writing text that is the same colour as page background since you will be penalized by Google for this practice.

• Other tenses (as with “develop”, “developed”, Implementing SEO “developing”) 1. Keywords • Different spellings (alternate spellings, British/ American spellings, and, yes, misspellings) Knowing what keywords your target audience will use to find the products or services that you offer is the most • Turning verbs into nouns (as in “select” >> critical consideration in search engine optimization. “selection”, “selector”) Put yourself in the shoes of your prospects and start by • Other prefixes and suffixes (e.g. prefix “pre/selling”; brainstorming all the keyword phrases they might use, or suffix “find/able” or “suggest/ive”) both single words and up to four or five keyword phrases (called long tail keywords). • Any associated acronyms (e.g. “WAN” as well as “Wide Area Network”) An analysis of search behaviour typically shows that, when people use a one word or two word search phrase, they are You will also want to think in terms of expanding a at the beginning stages of their research, whereas use of search term by: a four or five plus keyword phrase reveals they are close to the “buying” stage (e.g. “Car sales” vs. “Mercedes 350 • Adding other words to the beginning or end. SL vintage”). Common ones searchers use are “how to”, “how to do”, “how do I”, “how can I”, or “where To assist in analyzing keywords, you can also can I find”; use online tools like Google Ad Words Selector Tool https://adwords.google.com, Wordtracker • Breaking it apart with other words or rearranging https://freekeywords.wordtracker.com, SEOBook keywords (as in “strawberry rhubarb pie” vs. Keyword Tool http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/ “strawberry pie and rhubarb pie” and “the 2012 NHL seobook/ and Wordstream Keyword Niche Tool playoffs” vs “the playoffs in the 2012 NHL season”). www.wordstream.com/keyword-niche-finder. When developing your content sections and body text, After brainstorming keyword phrases, look for creative consider the following: ways like these to expand your keywords: • Group like-minded keyword phrases and divide • Plural vs. singular (“examples” vs. “example”) your content areas to determine your site map navigation layout. • “Double” words (like “everyday” and “every day “) 7

• Prioritize money-making keyword phrases (those that 5. Ensure that the content on your website is high quality lead to a sale, as identified by examining your metrics) and is consistent with your keywords. and make sure you position them within your page so that search engines and your audience can easily 6. Check out various online resources (some are free) identify them. that will help you assess the relevance of your keywords by typing “keyword tools” into a search engine. • Use keyword phrases in your web address that best describe the page content – e.g. http://www. 3. Search Engine yourdomainname.com/choosing-keyword-phrases.html. Optimization Techniques • For each page, choose a title (60 characters), SEO involves a wide range of techniques, some of which description (150 characters) and Meta keywords you may be able to do yourself and others that will require reflecting the theme and content of the page, web development expertise. Techniques include increasing with each word separated by a comma. the number of links from other websites to your web pages, editing the content of the website, reorganizing • Placement of keywords is very important. Think the structure of your website, and coding changes. It also backwards, and put the “result/ conclusion” at the involves addressing problems that might prevent search beginning, thus keeping priority keywords “above engines from fully “crawling” a website. the fold” (i.e. closest to the top of the page). When indexing your site, search engines move their robots from top to bottom, left to right, so the placement of On Page and Off Page Optimization Techniques your keywords should be optimized strategically in for Increasing Traffic to Your Website order to be picked up by the engines. On Page Optimization Techniques • Avoid filling the top part of your site with large images or image navigation (text that is actually an image) On page optimization includes those techniques that can as you will miss the opportunity to have keywords be done on the pages of a website. On page optimization captured for indexing. relates to those things that are within your control – i.e. the content of your website. On page optimization techniques 2. Finding the Right Keywords help the search engine crawlers read the website content. A readable site helps to show quality and will result in Steps for finding the right keywords higher ranked web pages. (or search terms) Review the following with your website developer to 1. Determine what your existing and potential customers ensure that all these items have been considered: might be looking for. Ask your current customers On Page SEO Checklist what terms they would use to find the products and services offered by your business. • Always start with keyword selection, research and testing. 2. Brainstorm a list of keywords that are related to your business. • Have a Meta description tag for each page. • Create ALT tags for all images. 3. Check out the competition to see how many other websites are listed in search engines (particularly • Place a keyword phrase in H1, H2, H3, H4 tags and Google) for that keyword. You can use tools such in URL structure (domain name and your pages). as Google Page Rank—which goes from 1 to 10 • Develop an internal linking strategy. (10 being the best ranked)—to see which websites hold the top positions. • Have relevant, keyword-rich content.

4. Select the best keywords—the ones most suited to • Follow keyword density rules. your business and target audience. • Create and submit site maps, both XML and user facing. 8

• Design for usability and accessibility. 3. Host awards or certifications within your industry, create an award ‘badge’ and then have it link back to • Track target and converting keywords. your site.

Off Page Optimization Techniques 4. Utilize social media and search strategies: Off page optimization includes those techniques that can Twitter. This can be very effective in be done outside your website to increase traffic to your capturing attention. website. The various free off page optimization techniques (also known as free traffic sources) that you can use to • Follow thought leaders within your industry. drive traffic to your website and increase its ranking level • Make a note of what they like to tweet about. in major search engines include link swaps, blogging, social networks, white papers, infographics and forum postings. • Check their personal websites for more info. • Look at what kind of content they retweet. Additional guidelines to consider: • Retweet their content. • Include the keyword in your domain name when registering both your main website and any micro-sites. • Interact with them constructively. • Ask for their opinion. • Include the keyword when naming your digital resources such as a white paper, video and images Blog commenting. Find high-quality blogs written by (e.g. Rather than naming your image, “image-1.jpg”, people with whom you are seeking links and provide include a descriptive name like “weather-satellite.jpg” constructive, useful comments. This can prompt them to or “weather-satellite-tips.pdf”). click through to your website and create a relationship building opportunity where they can either become • Ensure targeted anchor text is keyword rich so that influencers willing to share your content and/or invite when people copy blog posts or other content, that you to become a guest blogger with your byline linked anchor text will come with it and generate pointing back to your site. All this contributes to gaining more links back to you. “inbound” links, which help your overall link popularity. 4. Link Popularity – A Key Factor for Profiling. Complete your profiles in the social circles Increasing a Website’s Page Ranking and map listings.This improves the likelihood for your business to be more visible to search engines. One of the most critical ways to improve your website’s ranking in the search engine results pages is improving Keyword tags. Use these in content posts and post the number and quality of websites that link to your site. titles to reinforce the specific keywords that your Google PageRank is a system for ranking web pages audience is searching for. used by the Google search engine. PageRank assesses the extent and quality of web pages that link to your web RSS feeds. Constantly making fresh content available, pages. Because Google is currently one of the most combined with “pinging” and natural share among popular search engines worldwide, the ranking of your followers, shows search engines how popular your web pages received on Google PageRank will affect the “brand” is. number of visitors to your website. Techniques to 5. Build a free tool that links back to your site. If it is improve your page rank are discussed below. useful, people will want to download it and possibly share it. Include a byline that brings them back to Link Building Techniques your site.

1. Send out product samples and ask for reviews, then 6. Build supplementary micro-sites and link back to ask reviewers to link to your site. your main site. 2. Participate as a guest blogger or guest newsletter contributor, with a link back to your site. 9

More about Increasing Link Popularity This table highlights some tips for increasing link popularity. For best results, ensure that links to your website are relevant.

Tips to Increase Link Popularity Description Distribute Articles/Press Releases to Build inbound links by distributing articles/press releases through Other Websites websites and article directories. Make sure that the articles contain a link back to your website.

Participate in Link Campaigns Businesses can ask partners (e.g. suppliers), other businesses, professional organizations, chambers of commerce and customers to add links from their websites. Be prepared to link back to their sites. The more relevant the partner, the better. Create Interesting Content Provide interesting information that users may find useful. Offer tips to benefit users (e.g. Pitfalls to Avoid When Hiring Contractors). Create tools that people will use (e.g. Product Quality Checklists). Create lists (people love Top 10 lists). Submit to article directories, press release websites, and/or guest blog. Give Testimonials Many would think it is important to get testimonials, but it is equally important to give testimonials, as long as they are authentic and well deserved. Ask to have your link come back to your site.

Turn Raw Numbers into a Data Story Be creative in taking your numbers and crafting an interesting story. When you are the resource reference, then all others who use this story will link back to you.

5. Keyword Conversion engines find from indexing your site. You can also see broken links and the pages from where they originate Site owners used to be satisfied simply to attract traffic in order to fix them quickly. to their sites; now they want to know what is working, such as which keywords most often lead to a sale. Google Webmaster tools can be found at www.google.com/ If you’re trying to sell a product or service through webmasters/tools. You require a Google account to set up your website, knowing the keywords that lead to this the webmaster account. You will then need to follow conversion at a high rate is an enormously valuable Google’s instructions to verify your website. Verified site marketing asset. With this knowledge, you can adjust owners can see information about how Google crawls, your site content accordingly. The following reference indexes and ranks your site. One of the key indicators link will help you with conversion tracking: that can be gathered from this tool is an understanding http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/ of the keywords that visitors to your site are using, and answer.py?hl=en&answer=1722022. then comparing them to the keywords that Google finds on your site. You can modify your content to reduce the “Bounce Rate”, which occurs when someone enters your site, doesn’t find what they like and leaves before Test, Measure, Test Again proceeding to any other part of the site.

1. Webmaster Tools Yahoo and Bing have now merged together to offer The three major search engines, Google, Bing and Yahoo, Bing Webmaster Tools. Getting started involves setting have webmaster tools that you as a site owner can sign up a Bing webmaster tools account at www.bing.com/ up for at no cost to manage your website statistics, webmaster/WebmasterManageSitesPage.aspx, then submit your content and site map and view diagnostic validating your website, creating and uploading a errors, malware or other concerns that the search sitemap and developing a search optimization plan. You should sign up for both. 10

2. Tracking Your Progress/ Future of Search Engine Website Analytics Optimization You should regularly check your search results on the • Social rules. Expect to see links with long term main search engines. Type in keywords or phrases that longevity on social networks to rank higher and both describe your business to find out how it ranks in the web page links and page rank to matter less and less. search engine results pages. You can also use various online tools (e.g. Web Trends webtrends.com, • Personal SEO results. With users offering personal One Stat www.onestat.com/ and Google Analytics information to profiling sites like Facebook, Twitter, www.google.com/analytics) to check your ranking against Google Places, etc. and search engines able to track that of your competitors. Key performance indicators personal preferences via user clicks, search results (KPIs) to monitor include the number of landing pages and advertisements can now be customized to suit you have, the bounce rate of those pages and the number individual preferences. We will see more of this of keywords driving traffic to each of those landing pages. customization as technologies become more fine-tuned to collect this kind of information and users become You can look at the following metrics to track your more willing to provide personal data. optimization progress and help you make decisions to improve your website and your marketing strategies: • Quality vs. quantity. With the introduction of Google Panda (one of Google’s ranking search engine filters Metrics Function that aims to lower the rank of low-quality sites), review and clean up of your site must be ongoing to ensure Page views Web pages that attract the most your pages offer quality content, not just quantity. visitors. You will also see web pages Make sure you keep content relevant and fresh. that are not performing for you. Referrers The number of inbound links or • Mobile search will continue to grow. Searching using back links. voice and tablet technologies will grow in importance. With iPhone Siri and Google’s own voice system, it will Where are visitors coming from (e.g. not be long before searching using voice will become via a search engine or another link)? an everyday occurrence. Bounces The number of clicks on links that lead away from your website. Traffic The number of visitors, new reports and returning. Related Topics Covered Entrance What words are people using to in Other Booklets keywords find your site? What pages are they • Social Media for Small Business landing on? • Blogs for Small Business Exit pages What pages are people leaving the site from? Are they not finding what they • E-Commerce: Purchasing and Selling Online initially thought they were looking for? • Integrating Mobile With Your Marketing Strategy Google Page This measurement is what Google uses Rank to determine how popular your site is. To view or download these booklets visit It measures how important those sites Ontario.ca/ebusiness. linking to yours are in relation to your site. It’s not about quantity, but quality. 11

Link building: The process of gaining links to other Glossary of Terms websites that link to your website. 301 Redirect: Method of letting web browsers and search engines know that a web page or site has been Link popularity: The number and quality of links that permanently moved to a new page or site. point to your website (i.e. back links). The number, quality and credibility of these links can influence Algorithm: A mathematical formula providing a set your page rank. of instructions for completing a task. Crawler-based search engines use a set of instructions to index and Link swap: An exchange where site owners agree to rank websites. mutually link to each other’s sites.

Anchor text: Words used in the link text. It is best to Malware: Malicious software that can destroy a stay away from words like [Read More], [See More], and computer. Common examples of malware include use a more keyword-rich phrase pointing to where the viruses, Trojans, worms and spyware. link is directed – e.g. “Discover Niagara’s Hotel Package Meta tags: Keywords, description and content describing Deals today”. your website that is contained in the section of HTML Backlinks: Links from external sites that connect to coding and is not visible on your website. your website. They are also referred to as inbound links. Outbound links: Links from your website to Blogs: A blog (short for weblog) is an online journal. Most other websites. blogs have an open format that allows any Internet user Reciprocal links: Exchange of links between websites. to post entries (comments, questions) to other bloggers. Blog discussions are usually organized according to Referrers: Sites that suggest your site through links certain themes or topics. coming from their website, blog, email, directory, tool, etc.

Bounces/Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of Search Engine Results Page (SERP): The pages that visitors that visit one page on your website then exit the result from a search engine query run by a user. You can site before visiting another page. run a search using certain keywords to assess where your web pages are ranking. Crawlers: (also called spiders, robots, or bots). A program which searches or browses the Web Social media optimization (SMO): Using social media in a logical, automated manner. Search engines activity to attract visitors to websites by using methods use crawlers to find up-to-date information. such as adding social media features (e.g. RSS feeds, sharing buttons) to the website content and doing Frames: (Frame set-up). A browser display area promotional activities like blogging, participating in (web page) is divided into two or more sections (frames). discussion groups and updating social networking profiles. The contents of each frame are taken from a different web page. Submission: The process of submitting a website to search engines so they are aware of the website and Google PageRank: A rough indication of the popularity can crawl it. and importance of sites that point to your page. A higher PageRank indicates a more popular page.

HTML (Hyper-Text Mark-up Language): A programming language used to create sites and pages on the web. This is the primary language of websites. For more information contact:

Telephone: (416) 314-2526 Facsimile: (416) 325-6538 E-mail: [email protected]

This publication is part of an E-Business Toolkit which includes a series of booklets on advanced e-business topics and an introductory handbook How You Can Profit from E-Business. The entire Toolkit is available at ontario.ca/ebusiness.